A child thought to be no older than 12 has been pictured waving a ‘jihadi’ flag during a protest outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in London.
The image has shocked both MPs and counter-terrorism campaigners as the girl joined a rally held by supporters of the extremist preacher Anjem Choudary last week to highlight the Middle Eastern country’s ‘crimes’.
She appeared outside the embassy in central London’s Charles Street on Friday – with other even younger protesters some of whom appeared to be no older than five or six.
Rally: This child (left), thought to be no older than 12 has been pictured waving a black 'jihadi' flag during a protest outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in London.
The flag the girl waved features the ‘Shahadah’ – a declaration that Allah is the only god – which is usually shown on a green background for the Saudi Arabian flag.
But when the Shahadah is depicted on a black background it is associated with extremist causes in both Egypt and Syria – and in recent times it has been identified with Islamist terrorist groups including Al Qaeda.
In the past such black Shahadah flags have been seen as backdrops for videos recorded by suicide bombers.
Some weeks ago London Mayor Boris Johnson called for children subjected to radicalisation to be taken into care to protect them from parents with extremist views.
Youngsters: Some even younger protesters, who appeared to be no older than five or six, were also at the rally in London.
Ghaffar Hussain, of the counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation, described the pictures of the little girl at the protest as ‘disturbing’ and added: ‘There is a very real issue with children being radicalised and brought along to these demonstrations to be given hate messages. It’s something that needs to be tackled. Children are being normalised into extremism. It’s very dangerous.’
Meanwhile Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, added: ‘Social services and police need to be very vigilant to make sure that children are not being radicalised and subjected to a form of dangerous psychological abuse.
‘Parents should take care not to allow their children to be involved in supporting in any way the activities of Al Qaeda.
‘ For adults this is a matter of choice. For those too young to understand this could be the first step on the road to radicalisation.’
Cause: The girl had joined a rally held by supporters of the extremist preacher Anjem Choudary (pictured) last week to highlight the Middle Eastern country's 'crimes'.
Yesterday afternoon Anjem Choudary took to Twitter to berate both Mr Vaz and the Quilliam Foundation as he wrote: ‘ Now Keith Vaz and the Quilliam Foundation want to take our children away because they carry the Shahadah flag. Maybe they should embrace Islam.’
Mr Choudary added: ‘ There has been controversy over these flags but they have been around since the time of Muhammad himself and are loved, cherished and belong to every single Muslim.
‘Black or white flags carrying this statement have always been carried in battles between Muslims and non-Muslims to distinguish the two camps of Islam and Kufr ( non-Islam).’
Mizanur Rahman, a spokesman for the Muslim Prisoners campaign group which organised last week’s demonstration, added: ‘There is nothing controversial about inviting famous speakers or flying the traditional Islamic flag.
‘What is controversial is the crimes against Islam and Muslims in the UK and abroad.’
London Assembly member Murad Quresh maintained that the flag was used by ‘jihadis’ and added : ‘It’s the black rather than green colour that makes it distinctive .
‘It should be of huge concern that young children are coming under the influence of Anjem Choudary and his mob.’
Here is the proof that Muslim parents teach their children how to become terrorists, they are taught in the home and they are taught in the Mosques. They are taught how to hate the country which they live in which in this case is England. What are the authorities going to do about this, will they remove the girl from her home and be put in to care before she gets to radicalised, will they hell, the authorities are only interested in removing White children, they have even said that children whose parents are in the BNP, should be removed and placed in to care, but Muslims who who want to blow up Great Britain, who want to kill people, who want to rape young White girls, and take over the UK and then take away our legal system and replace it with Sharia law, and that's just for starters, they are alright because they are Muslims, they leave them well alone.
But this wasn't just a 12 year old girl waving a banner, but it was children as young as 5/6 years old. Muslims are taught from from around the age of 3 upwards how to be a radical, they are taught hatred for the West and hatred against against the White race, and now they are coming on to the streets with their parents waving banners, and it no good saying that MPs were shocked, they only have themselves to blame, because it was them who brought millions of Muslims to Great Britain in the first place, but now the MPs are seeing first hand the problems they have caused, and they might realize now that, within the next 15 years, there will be that many Muslims that totally out number the White British people, that the Muslims will do what they said they would do, and that is to take over the UK. And by then it will be way to late to do anything about it.